A sudden bright light blinded Science. Closing his eyes, he smiled. The Lord was about to arrive. That thought seemed to have a fragrance of delight prompting Science to gently whistle a tune even as his being filled with joy. There were several occasions when Science had felt thrilled and excited. But somehow, every meeting with the Lord seemed to make him more alive to the possibilities… He was certainly looking forward to this meeting!
God: (with a gentle smile) What! No questions? No inquisitive thoughts?
Science: (broadening his smile) Hmmmm….. Father! I love you!
God: (Laughing) Yeah you do! It is your Karma!
Science: (gently opening his eyes) What? Karma? No Father! I really do love you!
God: How would you know?
Science: Because I feel it…
God: And what makes you feel that you love me? My presence?
Science: Eh… No actually I love you even when I don’t see you. Just thinking of you makes me love you.
God: Aahh… Thinking of me… So how do you know those thoughts are really yours? May be it is your past actions catching up with you as karma! You are destined to love me!
Science: If that were the case, you could have easily made everybody love you! Why are there so many differences – in faith, in belief, in acceptance, in religion, in perception!
God: How can I? Each ones karma is born out of his vasanas, his past.
Science: (after a great deal of pondering) If my love for you is merely my karma, in this case, it is fine. But what if I don’t want to love you? Can I change that now?
God: You most certainly can! Just decide that you don’t love me anymore!
Science: That sounds logical but Lord it is not practical. My entire conditioning in the form of my vasanas tells me to love you. But what if actually my vasanas were prompting me to hate you? Then, probably by changing my decision to love you I will be yielding to my vasanas once more!
God: An author of infinithoughts, Ramaratnam writes “It is not really about whether we have a choice. We do, but what is the quality of that choice? It is about the person who makes the choice. A person who is driven by insecurity, unaware of his unconscious motives, always concerned about what others think of him, easily influenced by peer pressure, haunted by failure, a prisoner of concepts, having a need to maintain his self-image, prestige and status – what kind of free choice will such a person make?”
Science: Very true! So how does one even know if the choice he is about to make is really his choice or if it is just another vasana come to haunt him?
God: What you are actually asking is the difference between thought and consciousness. It is the same difference between a virus and a bacteria!
Science: Lord! You do have a way of jumping to topics totally unrelated! What does virus and bacteria have to do with thoughts and consciousness?
God: What is an organism?
Science: Organisms are “living” things that have four main characteristics. They are made of units known as cells; they self-replicate through DNA; they respond to stimuli from the surrounding environment; they synthesise Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP) an energetic material and use the energy produced for life and growth.
God: Now please repeat it for the common man!
Science: (With a smile) Ok! The most astonishing thing man has discovered is that ALL living things or organisms are made of CELLS. The first organisms some 3.8 billion years ago were anaerobic unicellular organisms. Then came photosynthetic bacteria and cyanobacteria. Then plants, animals and today the human being is made of some 60 trillion cells which are not merely uniform cells but specialised versions with many different functions. Another characteristic of organisms is that they produce offspring that are virtually similar to them. Thirdly they respond to stimuli from the environment. In fact this external stimuli is what helps unlock the protein sheath inside which the DNA rests. The last characteristic of organisms is their capacity for metabolic activity – that is synthesis and degradation of substances.
God: That’s better! So are viruses the smallest organism known to man?
Science: Oh No! I mean Viruses are not organisms! They are somewhere in the grey area between ‘living’ and ‘non-living’.
God: What do you mean?
Science: Well, viruses have a simple structure but do not have a cell shape. Although viruses self-replicate they cannot do so using their intrinsic components. They must rely on the host cell that they infect to reproduce. Also, viruses themselves do not respond to external stimuli and do not have the ability to synthesise ATP. So viruses do not satisfy the definition of organisms!
God: You used the word ‘infect’. What exactly do viruses do?
Science: When it comes into contact with a host cell, a virus can insert its genetic material into its host, literally taking over the host’s functions. An infected cell produces more viral protein and genetic material instead of its usual products. Some viruses may remain dormant inside host cells for long periods, causing no obvious change in their host cells. But when a dormant virus is stimulated, new viruses are formed, self-assemble, and burst out of the host cell, killing the cell and going on to infect other cells. They cause a number of diseases in organisms including bacteria! (Science added with a smile) Some creative man began to call self generating programs that try to destroy the host program as a computer virus!
God: So what are bacteria?
Science: Bacteria are organisms made up of just one cell. They are capable of multiplying by themselves, as they have the power to divide. Their shapes vary, and scientists use these characteristics to separate them into groups. Bacteria exist everywhere, inside and on living creatures.Most of them are completely harmless and some of them are very useful. But some bacteria can cause diseases, either because they end up in the wrong place in the body or simply because they are ‘designed’ to invade organisms.
God: Do your scientists know how to differentiate between a virus and a bacteria?
Science: Of course Father! Viruses are 10 to 100 times smaller than bacteria. The biggest difference is that viruses need a living host to multiply. Whereas bacteria can grow on non-living surfaces. Bacteria are intercellular organisms, that is they live in-between cells. Whereas viruses are intracellular organisms – they infiltrate the host cell and live inside the cell. All viruses are harmful. Antibiotics do not work against the virus. Once you have a virus, you either fight it or die. Basically, viruses are parasites.
God: Now think about how to identify thoughts born out of an individual’s karma and the pure thoughts of consciousness that reveal themselves to masters. Like the virus, thoughts born out of past incomplete cycles cannot sustain on their own. They are neither living (having the energy to manifest) nor non-living (they don’t disappear on their own). They do not respond to external stimuli – they are ill-logical in many ways. They do not respond to logic. That is why very often, people get stuck with habits they know are harmful to them! They do not synthesis ATP – that is they have no way of getting the necessary energy on their own! On the other hand, consider the revelations, inspirations and pure thoughts that help mankind progress. They are capable of growing and multiplying with no apparent help from any individual. These pure thoughts are not dependent on the existence of a conscious being, like the bacteria that grows in living and non-living surfaces. And they synthesise their own ATP – a conscious thought has the energy required to make it happen independently.
Science: So if the thought is recurring in a man like a virus, growing illogically without any stimuli from outside, literally eating him from inside, it is karma. On the other hand if the thought seems to have a life of its own, things magically fall in place to make it happen like an automatic ATP production, with or without that individual’s help if it is capable of getting completed – it is a pure thought! Wow!
God: (Smiling) Most importantly, you said viruses are intracellular and bacteria intercellular. Similarly my dear, thoughts born out of past vasanas live inside the individual’s head. But the conscious thought of right action lays no claim to any one individual – it remains universal!
Written by Gita Krishna Raj | Published in infinithoughts in July 2011
When Science met God… | Segment Three: The making of me… | Chapter Three: The thought virus…
